The first two titles in the new AUC Press Nature Foldouts series have just been published and are guaranteed to appeal to all lovers of all ages of Egypt's natural heritage.
The author and illustrator of both is Dominique Navarro and the scientific (...)
Given the wealth of knowledge we have about the lives of the ancient Egyptians, we sometimes take for granted that from Egyptian texts (as opposed to graphic depictions) this has only been available to us for the past two centuries, since (...)
Given the wealth of knowledge we have about the lives of the ancient Egyptians, we sometimes take for granted that from Egyptian texts (as opposed to graphic depictions) this has only been available to us for the past two centuries, since (...)
If ever an eminently viewable exhibition is badly served by its title, it is the uninformative and uninviting ‘General Exhibition' now in its last week at the Palace of Arts, Gezira. Fortunately, several of the sculptures placed just outside the (...)
Disembodied ‘foreign hands' allegedly always poke their fingers into the pie at times of crises throughout the Arab region. What a pleasure then to have been present at the Café Riche late April when an embodied industrious and illustrious foreign (...)
Cairo - The illustrious hotels in the lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched Grand Hotels of Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel by Andrew Humphreys (AUC Press) met one of three fates in the main. The most fortunate destiny was that of the (...)
CAIRO – The title of the classic US song, first heard in a New York 1927 musical, certainly applies in Cairo, where some of the best things are free, and not only during Ramadan, when they are at their most plentiful and varied, but also offered (...)
CAIRO – Lawrence Pintak has the advantage of being both a distinguished communications academic and a practitioner, who has lived and worked in Cairo and had hands-on journalistic experience in the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, when arguably (...)
I found it impossible to read Women in Iraq by Yasmin Husein al-Jawaheri and put out of my mind the words spoken on 12 May 1996 by Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the UN, when interviewed for CBS News' ‘Sixty Minutes' programme.
The (...)
The heroes of Baghdad Arts Deco (Caecilia Pieri, AUC Press, 2011) are unseen and had previously been largely unacknowledged, but they had an indispensable role in the urban regeneration of Baghdad between 1920 and 1950, whose distinctive element was (...)
“I knew it in my heart,” she mumbled as her tears fell profusely. She felt her heart shudder as though it was as heavy as a stone. “How could you have allowed them to kill you, Shuhdi? Why did you let them kill you, love. My God! They're a pack of (...)
In her preface to The Minarets of Cairo, Doris Behrens�"Abouseif succinctly states the book's aim, "to present a survey of the minarets of Cairo �" a very specific and unique aspect of the monumental legacy of Islamic Cairo �" in all their glory and (...)
CAIRO--Attributed to a 19th century Native American tribal leader, the motto ‘Take only memories, leave only footprints' has reverberated throughout the world, especially in environments of outstanding natural beauty or special scientific interest (...)
“Come and take choice of all my library, And so beguile thy sorrow," (Titus Andronicus) As so often, there is an apt quotation from William Shakespeare, the most famous playwright and poet in the English language, for every occasion. But a library (...)
The question was put by eminent academic Jason Thompson in the prologue to his massive 900-page biography of Edward William Lane (1801-1876), published this year by the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press.
He raised it in the context of his (...)
Earlier this month, I was on the North Coast for a few days in reality. Since then, I have been visiting Alexandria from time to time ��" but that of the past, through the recollections of Alexandrians now scattered throughout the world.
I had (...)
Where else in the world on a summer weekend with perfect weather and a stunningly beautiful sea ��" turquoise shading to indigo ��" would you find a total of ten people sharing a holiday beach of silvery sand with a shoreline of some one and a half (...)
My companion exclaimed "bareeza bass!" (ten piastres only) at the ticket-turnstile where the two attendants confirmed that indeed was the admission cost for one person. They laughed when he then asked where one would get a ten-piastre coin these (...)
Egyptian people are assets not always sufficiently recognised by the authorities, especially in their contribution to the economically vital tourism sector. They are remarkable for their exceptional helpfulness, combined with other noted qualities (...)
May Day, the First of May in my native mainly rural and seafaring West Country mixes traditional and revived customs.
The West Country comprises England's southwest counties of Somerset, Devon and Dorset together with the Duchy of Cornwall, the (...)
It is as difficult to imagine Cairo now without Al-Azhar Park as it is to visualise what the Darassa site looked like until the mid-1990s, when it was a mound of debris that had accumulated over five centuries.
Surrounded by landmark mosques and (...)
Since I came to live in Egypt, I have often been asked how I cope with the heat, to which question I reply that I have suffered much more from being too cold than too hot!
Notably older buildings, but some newer buildings as well, were designed to (...)
When I was teaching English to adult students in London, one of the topics that we mutually enjoyed and learnt from was language and culture.
I was living and working in a vibrant multi-cultural inner London borough (administrative district with its (...)
The following four lines of verse are among the best known and most loved in English poetry:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
They were written in (...)
THE conversation on symbols of peace started, as so many do in Egypt, in a coffee-house. This one in downtown Cairo in a spacious pedestrian passage is noted for the array of naïve paintings on all its walls, inside and out. It also conveniently has (...)